


Shadows. Shovels. Joy.

by oncethrown



Series: Spaces Between [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 04:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9863372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncethrown/pseuds/oncethrown
Summary: 2x7 and 2.8 fic from Jace's POVAlec and Jace share part of their souls. It's a noble bond with no equivalent in the down or mundane worlds.Alec keeps having sex on his side of it.It's uncomfortable.





	

Jace walks Clary back to the Institute, grateful that she doesn’t ask him any questions. 

 

He doesn’t know what to say about what just happened. 

 

An Angel. On Earth. Captive and injured. 

 

His father did that. The evil of a man who would commit an act like that was in his veins, and parts of Jace still loved him. 

 

He can’t talk about that, and he can’t talk about what he’s been doing since he left the Institute either. And, since Simon is sure to, there’s no reason Jace needs to bother. That’s why he’d wasted an hour with Simon at the bar. So that the nerdy little vampire would run off to report to Clary that Jace was just some douchebag that she shouldn’t want to be around. 

 

Having her want to avoid him will be easier. He can’t force himself to do it and the more danger she gets herself into, the harder it’s going to be to stay away. 

 

And now that she is apparently… communicating with Angels and creating new runes, she is always going to be in danger. 

 

He tries not to think about that on his way to Magnus’s. He’s not Alec, he can’t burn himself into ash to protect everyone around him. He’s not good enough for that. He’s going to burn himself into ash for purely selfish reasons, and not let anyone stop him. 

 

* * *

 

He needs a shower. He’s hungry and lightheaded from all the runes he’d activated so quickly in order to counteract the cocktails he’d drunk before Luke came to get him. Hot water isn’t going to fix any of that, but it will make him feel a little more human. 

 

And Magnus’s shower is amazing. 

 

Jace hears the sound as he’s depositing his stuff in his room. 

 

It’s low and wordless and for a moment, Jace is terrified that it’s the cry of the Angel again.He activates the enhanced hearing run on his arm, takes a seraph dagger out of its sheath and goes back into the living room. 

 

He hears the sound again, and with the advanced hearing rune he can at least tell where it’s coming from. 

 

He’s not sure if it’s the realization that the sound is coming from Magnus’s room, or the sudden twinge of happiness that momentarily suffuses him through the parabatai bond, that tips him off first. 

 

But the combination of the two makes it very clear that the sound isn’t an angel, or a demon. 

 

It’s Alec. 

 

Alec. Moaning.

 

Alec. With Magnus. Moaning. 

 

Alec. With Magnus. In his bedroom. Moaning.

 

“Yes. _More_ , yes.”

 

Jace has never heard Alec sound anything like that. He’s never felt anything through their bond like he’s feeling now either. 

 

“Oh just wait, Alexander. I can make it so much better than this.”

 

Jace hasn’t heard Magnus sound like that either. 

 

Jace feels a burn of nervousness though the bond. Alec makes a surprised, yelping sort of sound and Jace’s hand tightens around his dagger until he hears Alec laugh. An extended, cascading sort of laugh that sounds absolutely nothing like Alec. 

 

 Jace sheaths his dagger, and is rocked by a surge of absolute fucking joy pulsing through him.

 

He stands dumbly in the living room, not sure what he can do now. You can’t turn an enhanced hearing rune off. It takes about twenty minutes to fade. Magnus and Alec are probably going to be… continuing to make noise for most of that time. 

 

He’s too tired to go back out. He’ll be able to hear most of what they’re doing back if he goes back to his room. The closer he is to Alec, the harder it is to tune out anything coming through the bond, but he can probably do it. He realizes that he’s been concentration on the connection for the last minute or so, “opening” it. He closes it down a little, and feels the happy, nervous feeling go quiet, but not disappear. 

 

He can live with that. 

 

He decides to just take his stupid shower. 

 

* * *

 

 

The hearing rune makes standing in Magnus’s huge, LED Lit, rainfall shower feel like being in a hurricane. The water roars around Jace, but the chaos helps him push out Alec’s increasing presence on Jace’s side of their shared bond. 

 

Alec being insubstantially nearby all of the time is something Jace has gotten used to in the last decade. Most of the time it’s just a background hum. But it’s been different since he got back from Valentine’s ship. He’s been assuming that he’s just hyper aware of the bond lately, after so much time feeling its absence while he was out at sea. But he’s starting to wonder if it’s actually Alec. 

 

Alec was different now. He wasn’t locked down all the time. He was less prickly, the chewing out this afternoon notwithstanding. He actually seemed to feel things. Want things. Jace had caught him smiling at his phone a few times. He’d taken an entire day off to portal around the world with Magnus. 

 

And now they were having sex. 

 

How long has this thing between Magnus and Alec been going on, Jace finds himself wondering. Alec’s wedding had only been a couple weeks ago, and he knew that the first official “date” had only been a few days ago. 

 

Was… was tonight the first time?Or had… when Alec had been disappearing off to Magnus’s for weeks before the wedding, had this been why?

 

No. That didn’t make sense. Jace was learning right now that he would have known if that was the case. 

 

The background hum of Alec— the blankly happy feeling— cut out. Like a radio turning suddenly to static. Jace had the shower door halfway open before he could feel Alec again. 

 

The feeling coming turns from blown-out warmth to quiet happiness to giddiness.

 

Alec isn’t a giddy person. Jace can’t even imagine it. He wonders if anyone but Magnus has ever seen it. He wonders how soon Magnus saw it. How many times. If Magnus realizes that how strongly Alec already feels for him. If Magnus understands how much Alec has risked for him, and what he owes Alec now.

 

Jace turns off the shower, grabs one of Magnus’s ludicrously nice towels, wraps himself in it and heads back toward his room.

 

The advanced hearing rune is still active, only now starting to fade. 

 

“Should I summon anything up for us?” Magnus is whispering as Jace walks past his bedroom door. 

 

“No,” Alec replies in the softest voice Jace has ever heard from him. “No. I just want to stay like this.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jace wakes up to the smell of butter and baking bread. 

 

It is upsettingly close to the smell of an imprisoned angel ascending to heaven. 

 

He yawns and stretches, breathing deep and letting his body move against the sheets. Everything in Magnus’s loft is so fucking luxurious. Even his sheets are like sleeping in clouds. The stark difference between Magnus’s opulent apartment and Valentine’s ship is reassuring. It’s impossible to wake up on silky sheets, in a perfectly warm room, with an essential oil diffuser making everything smell like sandalwood, and think for a moment that he’s anywhere but in Magnus Bane’s spare bedroom.

 

And now Magnus is baking breakfast. 

 

Jace’s stomach turns. He’s starving, and the alcohol from last night isn’t sitting well. But he’s interrupted enough of Alec and Magnus’s… time together lately. He can eat later. 

 

He throws the heavy covers back. A light slip of fabric flies upward and falls back down onto him. Lacy pink panties. He turns them over in his hands. 

 

He wonders if Alec should know better, considering the bullshit Jace has been pulling lately. He’s been bringing girl after girl back here, and he’s never had any of the feelings Alec had last night. And Jace has a feeling he’s a hell of a lot more like Magnus than Alec realizes. Jace pulled Magnus up in the clave database when he got back. His wrap sheet is not short, and his list of known romantic or sexual associates is about 10 times longer. 

 

The idea of someone treating Alec like Jace had treated whoever these panties belong to makes him a little too sick to go without eating any longer. 

 

He throws the panties away, hurries into his own clothes, and tries to slip out of Magnus’s apartment unnoticed. 

 

He sees the two of them though, as he leaves. The back of Magnus’s head as he passes a croissant and dainty jar of jam to a grinning, tousled looking Alec. 

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t expect anyone to be in the library. He’s here because he doesn’t expect anyone to be here, and no one would expect him to be here. Everyone looks things up on the database now, but the Clave tracks inquiries. If a few books go missing, it’s possible no one will even notice. 

 

Except Isabelle, who is sitting propped against a shelf with a book in her lap. She looks sick. Greasy hair, pale, sweaty. She should definitely be in bed, but Jace knows better than to point that out, especially when she’s clearly working on something. 

 

She looks up at him. There’s surprise on her face, but it’s dulled. “What are you doing back in the Institute?”

 

Jace puts a finger to his lips. “I need to do a little research.”

 

“On Angels?”

 

“How did you guess? What are you reading up on?” 

 

Isabelle’s face goes strangely rigid, before she forces a smile and holds up her book. “Clary was looking for some stuff about vampires. I know it’s in one of these books.”

 

Jace nods. Of course. Simon and Clary. 

 

“How is… staying with Magnus going?” Isabelle asks. 

 

“He’s a better roommate than I am. I’m sure,” Jace replies. 

 

He can tell by the way she’s looking at him that she was expecting more to his answer. Something totally different. 

 

The shoe suddenly drops. “Alec… is around more than I expected.”

 

“Yeah,” Isabelle says, closing her book. “He… didn’t come home last night.”

 

A little sigh of relief escapes Jace. They are the same page. “I have to ask this. Is Alec…”

 

“A virgin?” Isabelle supplies. “I think… he was.”

 

Jace recalls the little of the sound through Magnus’s door that he couldn’t ignore. “I… think he _was_ too.”

 

He can tell by the way Isabelle’s face splits into a grin that she isn’t going to be open to hearing his suspicions. She laughs, he tries to echo her, and moves on through the stacks. 

 

* * *

 

 

Alec has clearly lost his mind. 

 

Maryse asked him to throw Max’s Rune Ceremony Party. And he’s doing it in Magnus’s loft. 

 

Jace and Alec are sitting at Magnus kitchen island while Magnus is off making arrangements. Alec is telling him all about handing their mother the invitation. Telling her off for assuming it was going to be a rave. Actually saying to her, outloud, that she was being ignorant and that she needed to get used to the fact that he was with Magnus.

 

He seems thrilled, and relieved, and very much not like Alec. 

 

Jace can’t bring himself to stop Alec. Alec probably wouldn’t listen anyway. He felt Alec and Magnus have sex twice today, and the extremity of Alec’s feelings during it hasn’t changed. He’s spinning, happy and relaxed and actually putting himself first in a way that Jace hadn’t known Alec was even capable of. 

 

Jace listens. He nods. He makes a couple vaguely affirming sounds. 

 

But mostly he wonders if Magnus realizes how… central he is to everything Alec is doing right now. Alec is changing, opening up, finally wanting things for himself. 

 

If Magnus is just getting laid, Jace is going to destroy him. 

 

* * *

 

 

He was direct. He was as threatening as he thought was appropriate.

 

Magnus had not been threatened. 

 

And it takes another hour before Jace realizes that the fact that he still isn’t totally reassured has way more to do with himself than it does with Magnus. 

 

Jace has been with plenty of girls. Easy charm has gotten him more temporary affection than anything else. He knew he was looking for more with each successive girl. Searching for something… and he’s learned since moving into Magnus’s loft that what he’s looking for is the pulse of peace and happiness he feels from Alec across the loft. 

 

Jace can’t feel physical sensation through the bond, for the most part, apparently as much to Magnus’s relief as to his own.  He can tell when Alec is… finishing up, because there’s no thought, no feeling, coming through the bond, but everything thing else Alec feels isn’t just because… Magnus is accomplished. 

 

Alec feels joy when he’s alone with Magnus. 

 

Not just happiness, not just content, not just the first string of orgasms after denying himself for so freaking long. 

 

Joy. 

 

Jace has felt that with one person. And it was wrong. 

 

And the way he’s going about it looking for it again feels bad. 

 

Especially when he’s quietly learning what it’s supposed to feel like. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt me on tumblr!
> 
> Oncethrown.tumblr.com


End file.
